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In September last year, Miles Jupp took over what is arguably the biggest job in BBC radio comedy. He became the host of The News Quiz, the Friday night topical laugh-off which has been on air since 1977, is now onto its 92nd series and still draws in several million listeners an episode. Quite the mantle to take on.

“Mmm. There are a lot of people who listen to these things but with Radio 4, quite frankly, you don’t know if they tune in because they like a specific thing or because the thing gets turned on in the morning and gets turned off again at night,” says Jupp, who tends to speak in the mildest tones of understatement, punctuated with the odd, professorial, vocal italic.

“Not making people reach for the off button seems like a small victory, but an important one.”

I think what Sandi as a lady is doing hosting QI, is more important than me being a man, hosting The News Quiz. When I was offered it, it wouldn’t occur to me to say ‘No, I think you should offer it to a lady.’

While much was made of Sandi Toksvig quitting the show after 9 years, and the race to appoint her successor, it turns out that Jupp forgot to respond to the job offer when it came. “Julia [McKenzie, Executive Editor BBC Radio Comedy] rang the next day and said ‘Just wondered if you’d thought about it at all?’ I said ‘Oh god, yes absolutely, yeah, write my name down…’”

That’s not quite the full story. Jupp saw the job come up and went for it. He was in the comedy department a lot, guesting on The News Quiz and recording his sitcom In and Out of the Kitchen. “And I just let it be known that I would like to put my hat in the ring,” he says. “I like the programme from a fan point of view, I thought I would like to be in charge of that for a bit, I would like to be its custodian,” he says. “I’m not going to pretend it’s not a big old job. It has quite a large footprint on the diary. My wife really likes it – it’s a proper job.”

Miles Jupp has changed the gender balance of contestants on ‘The News Quiz’ since he took over in September Photo: BBC

Jupp shows all the signs of being a bumbler – mussed-up hair, a hotch-potch of vaguely baggy clothes, a hesistant manner of speaking, laced with unnecessary courtesy and self-deprecation – but his approach to his career has been unrelentingly steely. Now 37, he became a professional comedian when he was still a student at Edinburgh.

On the one hand, he was studying divinity (following his father, who is a minister in the United Reform Church) and a trainee chaplain in the local psychiatric hospital. “I just sort of wandered round, slightly terrified, and sat and talked to people. I didn’t really know what I was doing. Sometimes you’d talk to people for weeks and they’d seem maybe a bit depressed and then they’d tell you a story about what they’d done and that a magistrate had ordered them to go to psychiatric hospital. Oh gosh, that’s quite full on…”

You’ve got to earn the right to be called a comedian… A lot of this job is reading stuff out loud into a microphone

On the other, he was a rising star of BBC Scotland, appearing in the comedy showcase, Live Floor Show with Al Murray and his best pal Frankie Boyle (why hasn’t anyone given them an odd couple TV series yet?) and, more famously, as Archie, the jolly inventor in a pink jumper, on the pre-school series Balamory. By night, he would do stand-up, performing jokes about being posh, in tweed, on Glasgow’s Sauciehall Street on a Friday night. By his own admission, it took some guts.

He is probably best known to viewers as the pedantic lay reader Nigel in Rev but these days he pops up everywhere, like a comedy Zelig. In his current two-month break from The News Quiz, he has managed to slot in three acting jobs – the Outnumbered Christmas special, an episode of Quacks, an upcoming sitcom about Victorian doctors and a new film of Journey’s End, starring Sam Claflin and Paul Bettany. The latter explains the “ridiculous” moustache he’s sporting.

He’s also writing the first of three spin-off books from In and Out of the Kitchen, a spoof memoir/ foodie book by his Pooterish cookery writer Damien Trench. He is currently relishing compiling recipes complete with daft ingredients such as a “handful of honey.”

So, Jupp is too busy to be properly bumbling. And when he starts back at The News Quiz – a job which soaks up 25 Thursdays a year – he will spend his spare evenings continuing to tour his latest stand-up show, Songs of Freedom. He has already done two months and sets off again in January.

“Every now and then you realise things have got a bit too comfortable and you need to get some fear back,” he says. “You’ve got to earn the right to be called a comedian… A lot of this job is reading stuff out loud into a microphone.”

He doesn’t think he gets nervous but lately he has been having trouble sleeping after gigs so he has cut out caffeine. “You suppress your nerves so they’re not there and then they come up to the surface. So then you’re in the bath til 2am, thinking ‘this is the third time I’ve refilled it with the hot now, this is ridiculous.’”

We do find ourselves missing Peckham. It was really mixed and fun, just some really interesting parents at the school

The current show is quite different from his last one, where he gave vent to his political frustrations. “I’m genuinely trying to be a less angry person.” He wrote it between jobs and on trains, scribbling ideas down on old receipts which he stuffed into an envelope labelled ‘2016 Tour’.

When it was full up, he sat down and wrote the show up. It is largely about his “view of the world and being tired”, with routines about baths, biscuits, trains and WH Smith, as well as his move to the country.

He, his wife Rachel and their five children under the age of eight moved from Peckham, south London to Monmouthshire, Wales last year. It all sounds very wholesome; the family Jupp takes up an entire pew at church on Sundays.

Is he still religious? “I’m not really… I’ve got nothing against it. The children are at a really nice school now but we do find ourselves missing Peckham. It was really mixed and fun, just some really interesting parents at the school. As indeed there are where we are now… But it was much more mixed. That was really good for the children, to have a less cosseted upbringing than I did.”

When Jupp started out in comedy, his cosseted upbringing was his meat and drink. He’d perform in tweed and corduroy making jokes about class – “My name’s Miles Jupp and I’m privileged. Not just to be here… but in general.”

I went back and looked at the stuff that I was doing in 2003 and God, I would absolutely not do that now. It seemed relentless – a lot of it was just sort of unpleasant

“I just got too hung up on it, really,” he says. “I went back and looked at the stuff that I was doing in 2003 and I couldn’t really believe it. God, I would absolutely not do that now. It seemed relentless – a lot of it was just sort of unpleasant.”

He is most proud of his 2011 show Fibber in the Heat, a terrific piece of comedy storytelling about the time he blagged his way on to an England cricket tour of India, by claiming to be BBC Scotland’s cricket correspondent (“That was a thing of substance… I’m slightly nostalgic for it in a way”).

Similarly he has left the politics of his last show behind. “When you’re chairing something, you’re meant to be unbiased. Which is blatantly stupid, really,” he says. Which brings us back to The News Quiz.

“There will be people paranoid enough to count stuff up – ‘there have been 12 jokes about Jeremy Corbyn this series’, that sort of thing. I don’t engage with that stuff,” says Jupp. “I just don’t think it’s comedy’s duty to be unbiased. I think that’s really ridiculous… To be honest, it really clouds the issues, walking on eggshells. We struggled to find many pro-Brexit voices. And, you know, what difference did it make anyway?”

He has made a number of changes to the show since he took over, despite an institutional resistance to change. “Tonally we want to take slightly harder pots at things. It’s about getting a few kidney punches in, really. If you’re inheriting someone else’s audience, surely what you want to do is grow that audience. If someone doesn’t want to listen to it anymore then that is absolutely fine. That is, if anything, good.”

I just don’t think it’s comedy’s duty to be unbiased. I think that’s really ridiculous… We struggled to find many pro-Brexit voices. And what difference did it make?

He wants to tell the stories behind the news, but most importantly, he wants it to be funny. “People can say things that bring in rounds of applause but you think ‘let’s do some jokes, shall we?’”

Most significantly, he has taken control of the booking policy, bringing in new regulars like Holly Walsh, Elis James, Frankie Boyle and Sarah Kendall. “Purely for an audio thing, it’s good to have different voices. If you’ve got me, Francis Wheen and Hugo Rifkind, it’s irritating. We’re already what’s wrong with Britain…”

Since he took the helm, there has been a 50/50 gender split in panellists, which was not the case before. “We’ve had shows when we’ve had three women and one man and that’s not something that we’ve made a fuss of. It’s just how we’ve done it. There are lots and lots of really great people. I don’t think it should ever be a problem booking it.”

‘It’s good for my children to have a less cosseted upbringing than I did’: Miles Jupp, photographed by David Secombe

It is, nevertheless, unfortunate that one of the few panel shows chaired by a woman, is now once more chaired by a man. “I am a white, middle-class man and that is not something I personally am looking to change. That is what I am and I’m not going to pretend that I’m not. But I don’t genuinely believe that’s why I got the job. I think what Sandi as a lady is doing hosting QI, is more important than me being a man, hosting The News Quiz. When I was offered it, it wouldn’t occur to me to say ‘No, I think you should offer it to a lady.’ They may well have already offered it to a number of ladies before me.”

He has little time for the hand-wringing over diversity. “It’s a problem but also a problem that is so easily solved. There’s no magic to it: make an effort, book different people. If there is a push for diversity, then it’s understandable that someone like me should be further down the list for certain things. All that sort of stuff is for the good. What’s happening should happen quicker. Just f****** get on with it.”

If there is a push for diversity, then it’s understandable that someone like me should be further down the list for certain things. All that sort of stuff is for the good

He was asked to go on Question Time recently, and turned it down. “Question Time and accepting honours I just think, why have you done that then? It’s a programme for serious people talking about serious things. Some people just go on it and they do what is essentially crowd-work and bring in lots of rounds of applause for making relatively straightforward points that the audience will go for.

“I’m not saying that isn’t a skill. But that’s an evening you could have spent at home thinking about something else, or having a bit of a sort out. Or just having a nice long bath.”

Miles Jupp’s ‘Songs of Freedom’ tours the UK from 4 January to 21 March 2017 with a night at the London Palladium on 25 February; The News Quiz returns to BBC Radio 4 on Friday 6 January at 6.30pm

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